The irregular R5bn jobs scheme involving the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has claimed another scalp with the suspension of its commissioner Teboho Maruping.
TimesLIVE has learnt Maruping was informed of his suspension on Friday after a process that began last month when he was asked to make representations on why he should not be suspended pending a disciplinary process against him.
He has been summoned to attend a disciplinary hearing which will begin on September 23.
The suspension comes after a forensic investigation by an independent law firm found he failed to ensure effective, efficient and transparent systems of financial and risk management were adhered to at the UIF.
This was when he recommended that Thuja Capital, a company owned by then Productivity South Africa chair Mthunzi Mdwaba, be funded to the tune of R5bn to run an untested job creation programme.
When making the recommendation, Maruping overruled his own internal adjudicating committee which described it as nothing more than a concept which could not be evaluated.
Former employment and labour minister Thulas Nxesi put a hold on the award and ordered an investigation in December 2022 after the Sunday Times revealed the UIF’s intentions.
The subsequent forensic investigation highlighted a litany of failures, including that the company to which the award was made was not the same company that made the unsolicited bid in 2019 and former director-general Thobile Lamati signed the award at midnight on a Sunday.
Announcing Maruping's precautionary suspension on Friday, new employment and labour minister Nomakhosazana Meth confirmed this involved charges he faced over his alleged role in the Thuja deal.
"The commissioner's disciplinary process will be dealt with expeditiously," she said.
Meth said she has mandated acting director-general Viwe Mlenzana "to deal with all systematic and capacity challenges within the department and its entities."
"I am very much mindful of the UIF’s challenges; specifically, the system challenges and the negative impact on workers, the unemployed, beneficiaries of deceased contributors and employers alike. | would like to assure the public that work is currently under way to respond adequately to such challenges," she said.
Last November Nxesi approached the Pretoria high court to have the award declared unlawful and set aside, and this was granted in April. Last month Mdwaba’s attempt to review the court order fell flat when the Supreme Court of Appeals dismissed his application for leave to appeal the lower court’s decision.
Maruping was also found to have ignored internal legal advice, overlooked or circumvented internal processes, misrepresented the Thuja Capital proposal and failed to act in the best interests of the UIF when he recommended approval of the project.
In 2022 critics of the untested plan described it as a “get-rich-quick” scheme, saying it was clear “rigorous processes” were being avoided.
At the time Maruping and Lamati, who would later resign in the heat of the scandal, said the rationale for the huge investment was to tackle the country's critical unemployment problem.
Mdwaba was removed from his position as chair of Productivity South Africa, an entity under the department of employment and labour, as part of the fallout. He alleged the programme was stopped because he refused to pay a R500m bribe to three cabinet ministers and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula.
Two of the ministers, Enoch Godongwana and Blade Nzimande, successfully sued Mdwaba for defamation after he failed to back up his claims in court.
Maruping could not be reached on his phone at the time of publication.
He was previously suspended in 2020 after a report by the auditor-general found irregularities with the payment of Covid-19 Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme benefits and was reinstated two years later.
TimesLIVE